I Am Hope

Who are you?

I stare at the page and it stares back, blank, bare.

Who are you?

As if I could vomit my being into my pen to pour out as ink onto this dead paper,

How should I know?

I've only lived with myself for as long as I can remember.

drip .

            .

                  .

                      drop

Oh look, it's my life plopping into a puddle on the page,

Is that what you want?

Who are you?

I ask again but my soul's still thinking, sinking slowly inside my chest.

Who are you?

They think they know; maybe I'll ask them.

But I know what they say.

Gullible they sneer. Look at that smile. Look at those eyes. So naive.

Naive? Is that what I am?

Can the world really be so much worse than what I've seen?

Probably.

drip .

             .

                   .

                       drop

My ink just splashed on the page.

Is that who I am?

A big, black blotch on the face of this once-pristine universe?

NO

I refuse to accept your darkness, your grief.

You see the world through a black-eyed microscope.

Life is a war and death is the victor.

Best to be on the winning side.

Well, you're wrong!

And don't think for one second I don't know what real pain is.

My heart is a tangled mass of guilt and pain and confusion,

All wrapped up in a neat little box made out of scars.

I'm one big longing.

Well, please pardon me if I offend you by not being bitter about it from here on out.

Because you see, I love you.

I love you, world of haters and terrorists and bullies.

I love you, world of death and despair and loneliness.

And I know who I am.

I am Hope.

I am Hope and I am going to save you if it kills me.

So you can keep your money, your makeup, your masquerade,

your fashion, your facebook friends,

your everything that distracts you from the darkness we both know is there.

There are better ways to beat the night.

I know.

Because I know who I am.

You'd know too if you looked.

Past the awkward smile, the glasses, the frizzy brown hair,

past the skin and bones and heart tissue,

past the little jealousies and desires, the vanities and worries,

past the pain that throbs so easily for just - everything,

At the deepest rawness that is my soul,

I Am Hope.

Alive and bleeding,

With just enough blood left to save the world.